


The Mask and the Mirror

by prairiecrow



Series: One Degree of Separation [2]
Category: A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Genre: Ethics, Flesh Fairs, M/M, Realization, Robots, Trust, respect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-25
Updated: 2012-07-25
Packaged: 2017-11-10 17:20:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/468775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mecha world is a mirror of the human universe that created it... but there's much more going on here than a simple reflection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mask and the Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Set a month or two after "One Degree of Separation".

The mecha world was a mirror of the human universe that had given it birth: most robots were, to a greater or lesser degree, crafted in the image of the race that ruled them — and that, in Hobby's opinion, had been both a stroke of genius and a grave error on the part of those long-dead designers who had made the initial determination. On the one hand, the similarity permitted mecha to move smoothly through human society, largely unnoticed because they didn't set off the deeply ingrained "alien pattern" alarm that was built into the human psyche. On the other hand, the Anti-Robot Militia and its ilk reacted so adversely to mecha for precisely that reason: the cunning artificiality of the likeness, which seemed to them a mockery of the sacred organic form ordained by God, aroused in them an overpowering desire to smash the reflection and grind its shards to dust beneath their boots.

Hence the Flesh Fairs, in which the mask of "humanity" was deliberately stripped away, revealing the wires and gears and steel that lurked inside every mecha body. Hence the delirious ecstasy of the destruction, and the enduring popularity of the "celebration of life" that expressed itself in wholesale devastation of its perceived opposite.

Hobby had always believed that the Flesh Fairs were ultimately a harmless diversion, involving only the further demolition of already broken and discarded personal property. He had been serenely convinced that the mecha involved, being merely simple simulators of human responses, did not suffer to a degree that would be cause for moral concern: they were, after all, incapable of the type of intellectual abstraction that would make resistance, and hence suffering, possible.

But then he had listened, through Joe's recorded memories, to a conversation in the holding pen at the Flesh Fair that had almost claimed David 2 — and had discovered that in some cases the mecha being destroyed were not only aware of their fate, but also possessed the ability to regret, in their own limited way, that descent into oblivion. Joe himself had exhibited it more than any other, trying almost desperately to free himself from David 2's grip as he was dragged towards the stage; in the end he had acquiesced, but the fact of the resistance remained.

More than most people, Hobby was constantly aware of what lay beneath the flawless skin and behind the unblinking eyes of the robotic faces he encountered: he had taken apart, and put together, enough mechanical bodies in his time to be able to perform such dissections and constructions in his sleep. When he looked at Joe he saw the handsome and graceful form of a young human male, but also the subtle and intricate mechanisms that made every elegant movement possible, and the real-time personality emulation software that drove every word and glance and smile that Joe produced… or most of it, at any rate. There were elements to Joe's program construction, created by his secondary processing path, that Hobby couldn't unravel except by tearing apart his cube — and he had no intention of violating his promise that he would allow no future harm to come to the lover-robot, or of betraying the trust that Joe was, he flattered himself, slowly coming to develop in his regard.

It shouldn't have mattered, of course. What possible meaning could the trust of a mecha have? They were machines, no different from a car or an amphibicopter — "neither flesh nor blood", as Joe himself had once said, and hence undeserving of consideration or devotion or love. 

But Hobby, when he looked down into the mask and the mirror of his new companion and saw a vital alien presence gazing back at him with bright electric intensity, was also keenly aware that in this particular case things were very seldom as simple as they seemed. 

THE END


End file.
